Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy it JUST hit me

All the nonsense we are going through with DS school is going to happen EVERY YEAR probably. Those of you with experience, how do you do it?!

Well, we fought hard for three years. Then we decided to homeschool. Now I have to fight with myself, rather than a constant revolving door of people!

What baffles me is why are teachers so insistent on holding students back? Do they think we (all parents) are crazy? Why is this such an uphill battle?

this isn't going to be very inspirational, but we just left. we gave up the deposit (three days after the deadline), and ran to the hills - totally Iron Maiden-style.

but if it helps... you've put your finger on the precise the reason we bailed. if we'd stuck it out, we might have had some teachers who "got it" along the way, but i could see that every time we hit a snag the place would simply close ranks against us. it just wasn't workable.

The vast majority of teachers and administrators have very little if any training on differentiation, let alone acceleration, dual credit, or other such concepts. The public school system was patterned after a Ford system of assembly. The vast majority of teachers expect to be able to teach down the center line and students must adjust toward that center line. Most teachers and administration were taught one class on methodology in college and had zero training in GT education or issues involving GT children.

In short, there is so little training in dealing with anyone's child who frequents this forum that teachers and administrators don't know what they don't know let alone how to effectively supply what it is GT children need.

Yes, this is going to be a battle every year. I think you'll find though that as parents you'll become better and better at finding work arounds, supplying information, and finding opportunities outside of the school day to enhance your child's learning and meeting their needs.

In a phrase:

helicopter parents from hell. No, they aren't SUPER common, but far more common than a child with an IQ score over 140 is, let's just put it that way... So statistically, teachers/administrators are far more likely to have seen a parent who is WRONGLY convinced that their child is a genius who is misunderstood than a parent who has a child who is really HG+.



As time goes on, educators have, more and more, had experience with this type of parent. Now, two contributing factors-- the special snowflake syndrome that has many parents of average and almost-MG kids thinking that the school isn't meeting their kids' needs (and in some cases, they are RIGHT about that... keep reading) and also wildly overestimating (wishful thinking?) their children's actual ability because of incessant hothousing. This cohort, by the way, is what leads educators to suggest gently (and not so gently) that all kids even out by 3rd grade, and other similarly asinine things. Among THAT group of children, those early emergent literacy skills, etc? Kinda true. They aren't actually on a different trajectory entirely the way HG+ kids are, so yes, the gap narrows (or something like that) over time as other kids acquire literacy and numeracy that the snowflakes' parents drilled before kindergarten.

Secondly, NCLB means that kids in the third quartile of achievement are actually getting the instruction which is aimed squarely at them. Why? Because that is the group which can be moved into "meets" expectations on all-important annual testing. The lowest achievers probably can't, but they get instruction and accommodations (dictated by federal law, those). The second quartile achievers can just coast and they'll be fine-- they get to feel super-smart for having everything come "easy" (because the instruction, recall, is actually aimed BELOW the mean now), and their parents often get the idea that because their kids have straight A's, that they are "high ability" which can fuel the problem I outlined previously, and the other parents are just happy about it and buy "honor student at" bumper stickers and join the PTA. The highest quartile is where the trouble starts. THOSE parents often know that the instruction is too low for their kids' readiness levels, and rather than being pleased, they are concerned about this and what it might signify... they ask difficult questions. Things like; "Didn't we used to have a higher reading group??" and "what ever happened to the gifted program, anyway?"

In other words, simply by asking/mentioning concerns about the level of instruction, you've already labeled yourself as belonging to that trouble-making group of parents.

In addition, though, you've also indicated that you think that your child is DIFFERENT... ahhh, this is code for educator-speak "special snowflake." In other words, your child is never going to be in the wrong no matter what, and ALL proble roads lead to "look what you're doing to my child" and adversarial interactions.

Double-whammy.


Anyway. Yes, I'm cynical, but I've also seen and heard some pretty crazy things that over-entitled parents feel they can do to classroom teachers in the name of "what I want for my precious..."

It does pay to stop and think about this from the teacher's perspective, after all. If s/he takes YOUR word for it, then s/he needs to take Jane, Timmy, and Jose's moms and dads' word for it, too, and differentiate accordingly. I don't know about where you are, but where I live, there are often 30 children in a kindergarten class. Some of those children come to school without basic preschool skills, and others (like our own HG+ children) may be reading as well as the teacher does. Plus, the teacher may also have three or four really extraordinary challenges in that classroom in the form of behavioral or medical needs in kindergarteners that CANNOT assist in the management of those conditions.

Pretty tall order.

I remind myself of what teachers are ultimately up against when I advocate. I try to couch advocacy in terms of meeting my DD's needs, of course-- but in ways that do NOT increase 'demand' on the teacher.

Administrators, though-- there's much less excuse for their antics.

Just my opinion.

Administrators are given little or no more training in GT education than the teachers, in fact, administrators are often times less sensitive to special needs as they're responsible for a bigger picture.

The best part about our situation...we totally underestimated our DS ability. The 2 psychs we consulted gave us a talking to regarding how far out our kid is and how he has special needs. We are really just a hippie family and don't care about labels and accolades and such.

But I'm sure the school sees us differently now.

Exactly.

We're so not "those" parents, either.